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Is This ‘DA Group’ Really Advising Trump on Cannabis?

President Donald Trump smiles as he speaks in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2017, to announce Judge Neil Gorsuch as his nominee for the Supreme Court. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Headlines out of Colorado this week made many cannabis industry leaders and advocates do a double-take. “Boulder County District Attorney Named to Trump Marijuana Advisory Group,” announced Denver’s Fox 31 news site. The Denver Post and Boulder Daily Camera also referenced a “group that will advise Trump” on cannabis policy. “National DA Group Mobilizes to advise Trump on Pot Policy” read another headline.

When did the Trump administration form a cannabis advisory group?

What? When did the Trump administration form a marijuana advisory group?

They recently formed a policy committee comprised of 14 district attorneys from around the nation to issue advisory statements on possible future changes in cannabis laws.

They are not an official arm of the Trump administration. Nor have they been asked by members of the new President’s staff to “advise” them on the right direction to take. They are simply a trade group, working on a policy paper that they intend to offer to the White House. You or I could form a group to do the same thing. Whether the Trump administration acts on the advice, or even reads the report, is up to White House officials.

“Contrary to other reporting, the working group is not affiliated with any other organization or entity, including the incoming administration,” Nelson O. Bunn, Jr., Director of Policy and Government Affairs at NDAA, told Leafly in an emailed statement. “Previous reporting included misstatements that do not adequately reflect the makeup, purpose or discussions of the working group. Upon completion of the working group discussions, policy positions will be released by the association.”

Leafly asked the office of Boulder, Colo., District Attorney Stan Garnett about the situation. Garnett was recently appointed to the 14-member cannabis task force. In an email reply, Boulder DA spokesperson Catherine Olguin said, “I wouldn’t exactly characterize it as ‘advis[ing] Donald Trump,’ since who can tell whether the new administration will take any recommendations into account?”

To say Donald Trump’s administration has sent mixed messages on cannabis is an understatement. On one hand, he’s “heard some wonderful things in terms of medical.”

So why the new group? Why now?

“The working group was put together by the National District Attorneys Association to weigh in on policy recommendations regarding marijuana,” Olguin said. “As you know, under the Obama administration, marijuana was given a low priority by the Department of Justice with regard to federal enforcement in states where it has been legalized, so long as certain regulatory measures were taken by those states. Because no one is certain what the approach will be under Trump’s administration, NDAA put together a group of district attorneys from various states as a committee as a proactive measure to address the issue with the new administration.”

That means the new president. And especially the likely new attorney general.

“Assuming [Sessions] gets confirmed, he would definitely be the recipient of whatever we come up with,” Boulder DA Garnett told the Daily Camera.

Garnett is the second Colorado prosecutor on the task force. He joins Tom Rayne, executive director of the Colorado District Attorney Council. The two may bring some needed real-life legalization experience to the committee.

“I always end up on the more liberal position than anyone else, particularly on marijuana,” Garnett told the Camera. “I think one of the things that happens is that many of the people in states where there is no legalization have a complete misunderstanding of states like Colorado. If nothing else, I’m able to say, ‘Wait a minute, this is a huge business in Colorado, it is largely supported by the editorial boards, polls show it was being very popular, and by and large we have not seen an impact on crime rates.”

Who else is on the NDAA’s cannabis task force? The group won’t say. “We are not distributing that [information] as this is an internal group,” NDAA Policy Director Bunn told Leafly.

That’s not exactly reassuring. While the NDAA working group will benefit from Garnett and Raynes’ Colorado perspective, there are plenty of prosecutors in Colorado and California who resent that legalization deprives them the means to lock people up. There’s no telling where this self-appointed advisory board may end up.

Cannabis advocates, many starved for clues about this administration’s plans, may be forgiven for perhaps reading too much into these tea leaves. And while Mr. Garnett’s inclusion is a small positive sign, cannabis consumers remain apprehensive about the future of cannabis policy under the Trump administration.

Jay has been covering New Jersey politics since 2005, when he founded a political journalism site and became the first credentialed statehouse blogger in America. He currently reports on politics for Leafly and the New York Observer.

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I thought this was out of left field.
Does anyone see Trump looking stoned in the pic with this article?

Jonathan Warner

Emperor Cookie Dough maybe?

KrustyKola

He is “High” alright, like when you hear something crazy and say ” Are you high?!?”, he is that kind of high.

Mick Man

This makes me laugh out loud. “The Voice of American Prosecutors”. They only have one thing to say about all law…..”PROSECUTE!”
Thanks for the article Leafly, it’s informative and well written. You do us all a great service by presenting the facts to the alternate facts.

jim

Where in the hell in the constitution does it give the prosecutors or the president for that matter the power to make laws? I believe all laws must start in the house and proceed through the senate first. Wake up America, The declaration of independence declares that all our rights are given from God. And that governments are instituted among men and receive their just power from those same citizens, and that when they no longer represent those citizens, those same citizens have the God given right to replace that current government. If president Trump or congress doesn’t understand that the citizens of this nation have fought for years to free themselves from the tyranny of the wealthy and powerful who use the “War on Drugs” to imprison us and steal our property and freedom they do so at their own peril.
God bless all those who work to end the war on drugs
Gentle Jim

lovingc

No they aren’t advising Trump, but a group about the same size of AG’s telling him he is wrong on his emigration ban.

frankgrimes78

I worry for all my friends & online pals in the U.S. Especially the legal states & medical only states in particular. If this douche Sessions & others like him have their way the U.S will go back to the getting jail time for seeds or roaches in the ashtray era, I remember stories when I’d go into Michigan from one of the border towns & I was shocked at how severe the penalties were.